What’s Your Listening Legacy?
by Robert Hackman
Picture by Harli Marten on Unsplash
Gotta listen to learn
Learn to listen
If you ever want to know all the stuff your missin’
From the song ‘Lissen’
By Dr. John
‘You’re always coming into the middle of someone else’s story,’ claimed the workshop presenter and facilitator, Christine Miles. Her assertion alone was worth the price of admission.
Christine’s statement acknowledges you and I are story-making machines. We cannot help but make up stories about ourselves, others, and situations all day long. Many of our stories are below our level of awareness, yet they are present for us just the same.
We miss crucial elements by continuously entering the middle of someone else’s narrative. It is vital to realize we are entering their story in the midst of our own.
Add in the fact that only 2% of the population has ever had formal training on how to listen. Is it any wonder the quality of our communication is severely compromised? One of my favorite maxims applies here. The biggest problem with communication is the assumption that it has occurred.
Yet, each of us has an innate craving to be understood.
These are the facts. How can you respond to them to improve your comprehension and understanding?
- First, acknowledge their reality.
- Second, seek information and training about listening and practice what you learn.
- Third, recognize the power of listening well and the impact it has on you and others, how it can deepen relationships and extend your influence.
Engaging in various peer-to-peer groups consistently for more than 20 years, I have learned that being witnessed and listened to entirely is one of the richest and affirming experiences a person can have – precisely because it is so rare.
I have dramatically improved my capacity to listen intently to others through my work as a Coach, Facilitator, and peer group participant. I have learned to listen with my eyes and heart and to pay attention to my body’s response to what is conveyed.
When focused, I readily pick up on how words get expressed, what is not being said, and most importantly, whether the person speaking believes what they are saying.
And yet, I must admit I am frequently an inattentive listener. My wife and children have hammered this truth home for me despite my resistance to accepting it. Ouch! They feel disrespected, uncared for, and diminished when I do not listen fully.
Consider the alternative: when I listen intently and with skill, I elevate, validate, and affirm the person to whom I am listening. These significantly different outcomes add or detract from my impact and the Legacies I seek to leave.
My behavioral style, my inclination to think continuously, combined with the fact that people speak in the range of 140-180 words per minute while the average person processes 400 words per minute, leaves my mind with the idle capacity I often feel compelled to fill.
Attending Christine’s workshop revealed how much better my listening can be. For my benefit, the benefit of those with whom I interact, and our relationships.
We learn and make meaning through stories. Therefore, to comprehend, we need to get to the heart of others’ stories. Christine has developed specific inquiries that help us do that. She calls her technique ‘story gathering.’
Questions, Requests, and Prompts to Story Gather
- Take me back to the beginning.
- Tell me more…
- Then what happened?
- How did that make you feel?
- Hmm… (The Columbo or Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes method)
- It sounds like you felt…?
The sooner you ask feeling questions in your conversations while listening, the more likely people will open up to you.
I want the quality, care, and intention of my listening to be a significant part of the Legacies I leave with others. Quality listening is a fundamental leadership attribute worthy of my attention.
Understanding your stories helps me make sense of my own.
Our Legacies are comprised of our everyday impact on others, the environment, and what we leave behind. We cannot help but leave Legacies in all our interactions.
People often want help and never want to be told what to do, how to feel, or to be fixed. They want to feel creative, resourceful, and whole.
Only when we can prove we have genuinely understood another, have we earned their trust and the right to help them.
Remember, authentic listening is rare.
Wholly listening to another person is an affirming gift that is almost always available for us to give. David Isay, the founder of StoryCorps, says, ‘Listening is an act of Love!’
We too often squander these opportunities in service to less important and influential things. Skillful, caring listening is one of the most potent ways we can live and lead with fewer regrets.
As poet Maya Angelou famously proclaimed, ‘People won’t remember what you said or did. They will always remember how you made them feel.’
Worthy Inquiries:
- How can you remember people talk to us through their ‘stories’ and we hear them through the filter of our own narratives about them, ourselves, and the situation? What steps can you take to get to the beginning?
- Can you learn to interrupt, request clarifications, and redirect the person speaking to improve comprehension and understanding without offending?
- Are you willing to ask and acknowledge how others feel? How might doing so improve your understanding, increase trust, and extend your influence?
- How can awareness of others’ behavioral styles improve your capacity to listen and understand them?
- How can learning to wholly listen to other people with all of your faculties and applying transformative listening skills shape your Legacies in the ways you intend?
Please contact me to learn how listening with skill, care, and intention can transform your legacy with your family, your teams, and your organization. I welcome the conversation.
Robert Hackman, Principal, 4C Consulting and Coaching, helps people live and lead with fewer regrets. He grows and develops leaders through executive coaching consulting, facilitation, and training individuals, teams, and organizations. He is committed to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He facilitates trusting environments that promote uncommonly candid conversations. Rob is also passionate about the power of developing Legacy Mindsets and has conducted over 60 Legacy interviews with people to date.
A serious man with a dry sense of humor who loves absurdity can often be found hiking rocky elevations or making music playlists. His mixes, including Pandemic Playlists and Music About Men, can be found on Spotify.